Me On The Movie is A Member of The Large Association of Movie Blogs

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Everything starts like a
"normal" drama. Carol (Eileen Davies) does not like Chris (Steve Oram)
for some reasons. That's why, when her daughter Tina (Alice Lowe) decides to go
on a romantic trip with him, Carol does not seem agree with the idea. But they
have been a good couple and they have prepared for the trip, so they still
execute the plan anyway.

They have a caravan with them,
and everything goes fine and fun in the beginning. At least, until when they
encounter a passenger litters on the train they are in. Chris is also an
aspiring writer who is stuck in his writer's block, and he does not like
litterbugs. Chris yells at the man, only to realize that he shows not a good
attitude to Chris. So, when Chris and Tina accidentally run over him with their
car and kill him, I assume it's half accident and half revenge.

"Sightseers" is fun in
an immoral way. Ben Wheatley has a dazzling record of award-winning dark comedy
films like "Kill List", and "Sightseers" is probably no
different. The two leading actors are the film's script writers (plus another
additional material from Amy Jump), so we have no argument about how they should
portray the characters they created by themselves. A troubling couple, as you
may call them, has given us a lecture of how humor and moral stand on two
grounds so thin that you can't simply jump from one to another without cracking
each other.

When at one time you laugh for
something you know is not an appropriate thing to be laughed to, you have shut
down your moral control to let go your humor excitement. Like when it is
revealed how Poppy, Tina's dog, died, I feel weird. I laughed, but I had a
terrible feeling inside. "Sightseers" is all about this dilemma, this
moral-vs-fun collision. It's about how you lower your toleration to
inappropriateness just to accept laughter.

Personally, I don't like that. At
first, I presumed "Sightseers" chose a terrible way to simply give me
an amusement. I mean, look, what can be funny from random people being killed
by two lovers? Even songs are often (or always) put together to enliven the
atmosphere when the killings are on, I can't hide myself from guilt of laughing
at them. Let me ask you this: if your dog poops on a famous landmark in the
city and you have nothing to clean it, and a random person comes and warns you
to clean it however you can, will you just say sorry to him or will you get mad
at him and feel like you want to screw him?

A well-mannered person probably
gonna choose the first answer. But this is not about whether you are mannered
or not, and the film itself is not a test to your manner. When I see through
it, I understand that the film's main concern is to tease us, to tempt us from
the heart. Its big idea is on how we could see it as if having fun and romantic
date by murdering people is not such a big deal. Can we freely laugh at things
the film shows us without feeling guilt due to the inner moral conflicts about
the violence, injustices, and all?

And that also covers another
prominent part of "Sightseers": the journey part. Chris and Tina
bring us to visit several beautiful places around UK, and magically they are
also managed to turn these places into killing spree. So the beauty is gone,
and I am not interested to being amazed by the scenery of the landmarks
anymore. Or, perhaps I am no longer interested to the journey itself. While
it's true that the on-screen couple has done a wonderful writing for the film,
I ended up thinking that Chris and Tina have developed into two people I
couldn't understand, that "abnormal" might be the best label I could
use to give me an obvious reason for all the crazy things they did.

So here is a comedy with no
manner. All you have to do is to enjoy it beyond the blood and violence and all
the rudeness, because you might never be in the same exact situation in your
real life anyway. Thus, don't let your heart involved. I was practically not
really into this genre, but I appreciate the good, structured writing and the
original idea.